Day 0: Victorian England and Turbulence

After an intense day of travel from our respective homes, Carrie and I planned to land at LAX the same day (the 3rd). I arrived at noon and watched American Dad! and Pride and Prejudice, the Keira Knightley version. I want a Mr. Darcy. Carrie arrived at 4pm, walked to my terminal (oh, LAX, how we hate you) and we decided to wait outside for Tedders, who had agreed to pick us up and take our luggage. He was our savior. Two hours later, he arrived, after two calls from Sardimonster, who wanted to meet up with us, and three failed status update inquirys. Anyway, he picked us up, took us to Salvadorean food (huzzah!), took us back to his house to leave our stuff, asked us creepily if we wanted a drink, and even lent me some headphones.

The interesting thing about TACA airlines is that pretty much everyone flying it is going to visit family or head home--thus, it is assumed at the counter that you´ll be able to communicate in Spanish. We did that just fine, but then the woman at the counter stared at our tickets for a good 10 minutes without saying anything, which was terrifying because we´d booked the tickets on a not very well-known website, and thus were concerned that the flight did not exist. Thankfully, it did, and we went through security without a problem.

We lay down in the terminal and made a few observations:

I am always in the way, especially when on the floor.

Only douches play guitar in the airport at midnight.

Even airline workers dislike the tendency for people to line up before boarding because it´s so incredibly inconvenient.

We boarded the flight to San Salvador (first leg) and discovered that turbulence is actually quite terrifying. I totally considered praying when we hit turbulence for the second time and the pilot told us that the seatbelt sign was mandatory and there would be no bathroom use for a good 10 minutes as we flew through it. Then I thought about how good it was that I was wearing real shoes so I could walk through broken glass if we did crash. What I said to Carrie was, "Ah, the Pacific Ocean¨.

The San Salvador airport had a tiny little stand in front of the flight to Miama. The extra security for flights to the U.S. They were checking everything though. What does the U.S. expect from countries without a ton of infrastructure? The flight to Lima took another 5 hours, and I really can´t remember it at all. I think I slept or something. A flight attendant woke us up about an hour before landing with food. Cheese crepes. Yum.

We landed, proceeded to discuss our need for showers, and left the airport in a hurry after going through immigration to find a taxi.